cover image DINING AT THE LINEMAN'S SHACK

DINING AT THE LINEMAN'S SHACK

John Weston, . . Univ. of Arizona, $36 (210pp) ISBN 978-0-8165-2283-5

Until he was 11, Weston (The Boy Who Sang the Birds) lived with his family in an abandoned fence-tender's shack in Skull Valley, Ariz. There was no bathroom, the roof leaked, holes in the floor were covered with flattened coffee cans, and the family was constantly preoccupied with the "complex experience of finding enough to eat during the Great Depression." In this colorful but uneven culinary memoir, Weston recalls how his mother, Eloine, concocted meals out of whatever was at hand, sometimes nothing more than government beans, flour and rice, and the provisions her children obtained by poaching, foraging and raiding neighbors' cornfields and orchards. Even so, it wasn't a deprived childhood. There were dances at the Community Hall, annual Goat Picnics and Eloine's imaginative cooking: "a small repertoire from which she could coax ideas surprising even to herself," such as spaghetti with white gravy, salt pork, and raw egg—her version of carbonara sauce. After Weston's father died, the family moved to the nearby cowboy town of Prescott, where Weston discovered rodeos and Baptist summer camp and where Eloine "launched her quixotic deflection into Mexican cooking." Throughout the book, Weston skillfully draws the reader into the world of his childhood, then breaks the spell by letting his obsession with food lead him into rambling digressions about his experiences with gourmet cuisine as an adult. Even when he shares some of his mother's recipes, he can't resist adding more sophisticated versions that include ingredients unknown to his mother, such as wine, cognac, balsamic vinegar and heavy cream. These deviations undermine his theme, as do vignettes about love, loss and sexual awakening—detached narratives that jar this otherwise appealing memoir. (Apr.)